Church for Outsiders

Lenten Journey – Day 21

As a leadership team we are trying to define/refine our focus. Who are we trying to reach? The temptations is to say “everyone,” but what usually happens in that case is you reach no one.

The reason the question becomes particularly important is it defines our priorities. How are we going to use our resources? What ministries are most important? How are we going to reach them? (Whoever “them” are).

It is also important because it dictates what critics we will listen to. We’ll never be able to reach everyone and we certainly won’t please everyone. So when the naysayers come and the criticisms start, who are we going to listen to? We can’t listen to them all or we will constantly be discouraged and sidetracked by each and every voice. Defining our focus helps us to only listen to the voices of those we are trying to reach.

During our recent trip to Florida I had the opportunity to listen to my wife, Heidi, as she described our church to other pastors, leaders and family. Her simple description really resonated with me and brought everything we’ve been thinking and talking about into focus. “We are a church for outsiders,“ she said over and over again.

Our community is probably a typical small midwestern town. If you were born and raised here, you are an insider. If you weren’t, you are an outsider. Over time you may establish relationship and trust as an outsider and be gradually allowed to penetrate the outer edges of the insider circle, but you will never truly be an insider.

The more I think about Heidi’s description, the more I like it. As I look around our church and community, it seems apparent to me that God is calling us to be a church for outsiders – a place where imperfect people find love and acceptance; a place where people who don’t “fit in” anywhere else can belong.

This description also fits with my personal calling as a pastor. When I received our denomination’s recommendation as a church planter eight years ago, one of the things they said about me still stands out: “Jeff is an outsider who wants to reach outsiders.” Back then reaching outsiders in urban St. Paul looked differently than reaching outsiders in rural Thief River Falls, but the mission is the same. God is calling me, calling us, to reach the people nobody else is reaching.

When Jesus began his earthly ministry he read this from the prophet Isaiah as his mission statement:

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
for he has anointed me to bring Good News to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim that captives will be released,
that the blind will see,
that the oppressed will be set free,
and that the time of the Lord’s favor has come.”

(Luke 4:18-19)

And then he said, “The Scripture you’ve just heard has been fulfilled this very day!” (Luke 4:21).

And he proceeded to fulfill it by going to the poor, the destitute, the sick, the outcasts, the oppressed of society and teaching and healing and bringing Good News to people who previously only heard just news. Jesus came as an outsider (“He came to his own people, and even they rejected him.” – John 1:11) to reach outsiders. He offered love and acceptance to imperfect people. He offered belonging for people who didn’t fit in the insider cliques of religion. He offered hope to people who had no hope.

That is our mission. This is our calling.

Who are the outsiders among us? And how do we reach them with Good News?

Today’s Prayer:

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace;
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
when there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.
Grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console;
to be understood, as to understand,
to be loved as to love;
for it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying [to ourselves] that we are born to eternal life.

- St. Francis of Assisi